Install Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Linux from USB stick

If from any reason you are not able to install Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Linux from conventional CD/DVD-ROM or you just do not want to walk around with cd's, there is always an option to use USB memory stick to do this job. This short tutorial will describe this simple task from preparing your USB stick, load a Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Linux image and finishing with boot process. Although this guide describes this procedure specifically for Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Linux i386, it can be used with simple modifications to create Ubuntu USB install stick for any Ubuntu versions available including different architectures.

1. Download boot images

The current version of lucid-desktop-i386.iso image needed for installation can be downloaded from the Ubuntu Lucid Lynx mirror. Download it and save it somewhere into your home directory along with boot.img.gz which contains all installer files.

2. Prepare USB stick

Find USB device name Plug in your USB stick and find its device file name by:

fdisk -l

For the rest of this guide we are going to use /dev/sdb as our target. WARNING: DO NOT COPY AND PASTE COMMANDS FROM THIS PAGE UNLESS YOUR TARGET DEVICE IS ALSO /dev/sdb !!

2.1. Create FAT16 partition

Next we need to create FAT16 partition. For this we can use cfdisk with -z option.

This command will completely remove all your data from your USB stick, so backup first !:

cfdisk -z /dev/sdb

and create a first primary partition with the minimal size of 1000MB and leave the rest unpartitioned or create second partition with some other filesystem for normal use of your USB stick.